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Nothing to Fear? An Analysis of College Students' Fear Experiences With Video Games
Abstract
This study presents the results of a survey of 269 undergraduate students conducted to examine fright experiences caused by video games. Over half of the participants reported game-induced fear. Sex, sensation-seeking, and empathy all emerged as important individual differences in terms of enjoyment of frightening content, consumption of frightening content, and frequency of fright experience. Interactivity and presentations of realism also predicted fear. This work identifies titles, stimuli, and features that caused fright experience.
... Besides first-person shooter and survival genres, horror games are very popular in the VR community [37]. However, in research, horror games received less attention so far [37,40]. Even though, they offer a good opportunity to investigate frightening experiences in VR, which could be interesting for further fields, like VR therapy of various types of phobia [50]. ...
... Even though, they offer a good opportunity to investigate frightening experiences in VR, which could be interesting for further fields, like VR therapy of various types of phobia [50]. A study by Lynch & Martins [40] investigated horror game-inspired fright. Their results show that half of the participants showed anxious reactions to the horror game. ...
... We designed the VR horror game The Elevator to evaluate our research question ( Figure 1). According to Lynch & Martins [40] results of investigating fear-inducing elements in video games, we were inspired by the elements, they identified as most frightening: Darkness, disfigured humans, zombies, the unknown, surprise, abstract threats, blood and avatar/non-player character death, violence, fantasy, and manifested realism. Accordingly, we chose a dark space mine environment (darkness & fantasy) designed in low color saturation, in that the players are together with the virtual character or alone (depending on the condition). ...
The presence of virtual characters in digital games influences play-ers' experiences; however, the specific impact of various emotional states exhibited by these characters remains unclear. Theories like Emotional Contagion and Emotional Similarity seek to elucidate how the emotions of others affect our own: We might let the emotional state of others infect us, or our emotions may be intensified when others exhibit similar feelings. In the gaming context, we pondered: What impact does playing a horror game alongside a confident virtual character, compared to an anxious one, have on players' emotional states and experiences? We conducted a lab study with 69 participants and compared a VR horror game played with either a confident or anxious virtual character or alone. Horror games were chosen for their ability to evoke intense emotions, like fear. Our results show that participants could accurately recognize the emotional states portrayed by the virtual character. The horror game significantly increased fear and positive affect, according to the nature of this genre. Not in line with expectations, there was no significant difference between groups regarding player experience and emotional state. We discuss these findings and explore implications for emotional virtual characters within and beyond gaming contexts. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI.
... In contrast, non-clinical applications of BATs broadly rely on finite response options and stimuli, such as pressing a key or pulling a joystick to indicate the urge to avoid or approach an aversive stimulus (e.g., Heuer et al., 2007;Hofmann et al., 2009;Krieglmeyer and Deutsch, 2010). These rather artificial setups neglect that fear is a multidimensional response to a holistic environment and associated with complex behavioral programs, such as the fight-or-flight response to immediate threat (e.g., Cannon, 1929;Lynch and Martins, 2015;Teatero and Penney, 2015). ...
... Being virtually present and involved in dangerous situations positively correlates with increases in psychophysiological measures of stress, like heart rate (e.g., Higuera-Trujillo et al., 2017;Parsons et al., 2013;Gorini et al., 2010;Kisker et al., 2019a), verbal expressions of fear like screaming, and behavioral coping reactions like dodging or closing the eyes (Lin, 2017). A correspondingly high degree of interactivity allows for the impression of actively manipulating the events, as well as being directly affected by them, and thus facilitates authentic, multidimensional fear responses (Slater, 2009;Lynch and Martins, 2015;Lin, 2017). Whereas conventional laboratory setups have to rely on rather limited or substitutional response options, highly interactive VEs allow for physical movements and full-body responses. ...
... To enhance the feeling of being present in the VE, and thereby impression of being personally and physically affected by the environment and events, we build an exact, spatially aligned, physical replica of the cave -touching the cave's stone wall in the virtual world thus led to a corresponding physical sensation (see Kisker et al., 2019a;Biedermann et al., 2017). As interactivity is a major factor enhancing fear in VR setups (Lynch and Martins, 2015;Madsen, 2016;Lin et al., 2018), participants physically walked through the cave holding a controller appearing as a flashlight in VR. Thus, their virtual movements corresponded to their physical movements. ...
Fear is an evolutionary adaption to a hazardous environment, linked to numerous complex behavioral responses, e.g., the fight-or-flight response, suiting their respective environment. However, for the sake of experimental control, fear is mainly investigated under rather artificial laboratory conditions. The latter transform these evolutionary adaptions into artificial responses, like keystrokes. The immersive, multidimensional character of virtual reality (VR) enables realistic behavioral responses, overcoming aforementioned limitations. To investigate authentic fear responses from a holistic perspective, participants explored either a negative or a neutral VR cave. To promote real-life behavior, we built a physical replica of the cave, providing haptic sensations. Electrophysiological correlates of fear-related approach and avoidance tendencies, i.e., frontal alpha asymmetries (FAA) were evaluated. To our knowledge, this is the first study to simultaneously capture complex behavior and associated electrophysiological correlates under highly immersive conditions. Participants in the negative condition exhibited a broad spectrum of realistic fear behavior and reported intense negative affect as opposed to participants in the neutral condition. Despite these affective and behavioral differences, the groups could not be distinguished based on the FAAs for the greater part of the cave exploration. Taking the specific behavioral responses into account, the obtained FAAs could not be reconciled with well-known FAA models. Consequently, putting laboratory-based models to the test under realistic conditions shows that they may not unrestrictedly predict realistic behavior. As the VR environment facilitated nonmediated and realistic emotional and behavioral responses, our results demonstrate VR’s high potential to increase the ecological validity of scientific findings.
... For gamers this could lead to not only a decreased susceptibility to fear-stimuli in horror games but increased confidence. Conflicting views exist over whether repeated exposure leads to high sensation-seeking individuals becoming desensitised to horror media (Lynch & Martins, 2015;Villarreal, 2020). Similar to resilience, this suggests psychological development within horrorconsumers which constitutes to bravery, however, sensation-seekers may be averse to desensitisation as it could decrease enjoyment with the experience. ...
... Additionally, the first-person nature means that the participant will see what the character is seeing, allowing for a more accurate representation of gaze behaviour, without any distractions from having to look at the playable character. Finally, the demo was deemed suitably representative of the horror genre in gaming due to aligning with descriptions from past research (Lima et al., 2020) as well as belonging to the most frightening horror gaming franchise as suggested when Lynch and Martins (2015) interviewed university students regarding the matter, signifying its importance to the world of horror video games. Concluding the evaluation of the measures, the FQ strengthened the study design, as suggested by past research evaluating it positively, with a proposed high retest reliability and an immunity to social desirability bias (Marks & Matthews, 1979;Arrindell & Buikhuisen, 1992;Gills et al., 1995). ...
Objective: Inspired by the growing popularity of the horror genre, its intense psychological resonance, frequent use of visual horror stimuli, and the dearth of research in the area, this pilot study aimed to explore differences in fixation percentage regarding horror stimuli and fixation number across individuals split between three groups (horror/ gamer; horror/ non-gamer; non-horror/ gamer). Method: 12 participants were recruited and asked a series of questions to determine group, followed by questions from the Fear Questionnaire. Succeeding this, they were equipped with Tobii Pro Eye-Tracking Glasses and allowed to begin a short video game demo, being Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour, chosen due to its first-person perspective, lack of combat, and shadowed environments. Results: Independent T-Tests revealed no significant differences in fixation number or Fear Questionnaire scores, with one of two demo scenarios extracted for analysis showing significant differences across groups. Conclusion: It is possible that game design or resilience/ desensitisation can explain a lack of consistently significant results, as can a lack of sample power. The demo was deemed appropriate for the study design and the easily replicable procedure lends itself to suggestions for future studies to continue research in this area.
... According to the opponent-process theory, humans have more than a dozen basic emotions that contain physiological elements [25], [26], and six basic emotions have been identified in facialexpression research: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise [27]. Fear is a strongly unpleasant negative emotion that arises from the presence or presumed presence of danger and is defined as a multidimensional response in which a person has an immediate emotional reaction and subsequent cognitive response to a perceptible threatening stimulus in the environment [28]. Fear plays an important role in lives as a powerful, primal emotion and survival mechanism [29], [30], it can have positive or negative effects [31], for example relatively positive fear alerts people, protecting them from danger and preparing them for action. ...
... After a fear response is generated, people tend to use various coping measures to alleviate their fear. A survey by Lynch and Martins on video games [28] revealed that the stimuli that participants most often reported triggering their fears in games were darkness, disfigured humans, zombies and the unknown. Lin's proposed theoretical framework [45] for how players react to horror content in VR contains three strategies. ...
Virtual Reality (VR) has the capacity to offer unparalleled immersive experiences, particularly in the domain of horror gaming. However, creating both practical and enjoyable VR applications necessitates a nuanced understanding of user emotions and behaviors. To fill this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 participants who engaged in VR horror games, specifically exploring their emotional responses to fear-inducing stimuli and their coping strategies. The results revealed the motivations behind users' behaviors in response to different types of fear, highlighting the need to understand and manage negative emotions in VR environments, and provides insights into user needs and design methodologies in VR horror games.
... Fear often arises from the presence or presumed presence of danger. In other words, it is an experience induced by a stimulus [52]. ...
... After a fear response is generated, people tend to use various coping measures to alleviate their fear. A survey by Lynch and Martins on video games [52] revealed that the stimuli that participants most often reported triggering their fears in games were darkness, disfigured humans, zombies and the unknown. Lin's proposed theoretical framework [50] for how players react to horror content in VR contains three strategies. ...
Understanding and recognizing emotions are important and challenging issues in the metaverse era. Understanding, identifying, and predicting fear, which is one of the fundamental human emotions , in virtual reality (VR) environments plays an essential role in immersive game development, scene development, and next-generation virtual human-computer interaction applications. In this article, we used VR horror games as a medium to analyze fear emotions by collecting multi-modal data (posture, audio, and physiological signals) from 23 players. We used an LSTM-based model to predict fear with accuracies of 65.31% and 90.47% under 6-level classification (no fear and five different levels of fear) and 2-level classification (no fear and fear), respectively. We constructed a multi-modal natural behavior dataset of immersive human fear responses (VRMN-bD) and compared it with existing relevant advanced datasets. The results show that our dataset has fewer limitations in terms of collection method, data scale and audience scope. We are unique and advanced in targeting multi-modal datasets of fear and behavior in VR stand-up interactive environments. Moreover , we discussed the implications of this work for communities and applications. The dataset and pre-trained model are available at https://github.com/KindOPSTAR/VRMN-bD.
... Emotions, notably fear, are complex psychological phenomena involving cognitive and physiological aspects [12,32]. Fear, a strong negative emotion, is triggered by perceived or actual danger and serves as a survival mechanism [5,21]. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) [33] identifies five categories of fear-provoking factors, including animals, environment, blood/injections/injuries, situational factors, and other factors. ...
... When fear is evoked, individuals employ various coping strategies, such as self-help strategies, approach (monitoring) strategies, and avoidance strategies [20,21]. Physiological responses, including changes in heart rate, facial expressions, and specific action tendencies, are common indicators of fear [16]. ...
This preliminary study investigated user experiences in VR horror games, highlighting fear-triggering and gender-based differences in perception. By utilizing a scientifically validated and specially designed questionnaire, we successfully collected questionnaire data from 23 subjects for an early empirical study of fear induction in a virtual reality gaming environment. The early findings suggest that visual restrictions and ambient sound-enhanced realism may be more effective in intensifying the fear experience. Participants exhibited a tendency to avoid playing alone or during nighttime, underscoring the significant psychological impact of VR horror games. The study also revealed a distinct gender difference in fear perception, with female participants exhibiting a higher sensitivity to fear stimuli. However, the preference for different types of horror games was not solely dominated by males; it varied depending on factors such as the game’s pace, its objectives, and the nature of the fear stimulant.
... As one of the most common phobia objects (Lynch & Nicole, 2015), darkness forms the holistic environment of the staged haunted house with horror scenery and effects. Since our night vision weakens the ability to detect threats, 'the darkness is oppressing … sets the fear system on edge' (Clasen, 2017, pp. ...
... We were recoiling in fear, laughing nervously, and screaming in terror. Lovecraft (1973) thus argued that 'the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown' (p. 12). ...
Worldwide, dark tourism attracts millions of visitors to indulge in various experiences. In the lightest shade of dark tourism lie dark fun factories, which are entertainment-centred through a high level of tourism infrastructure. Arguably, to a large extent, dark fun factories for visitors are an interactive and affective performance of fear and fun. This study employs retrospective collaborative autoethnography to explore how a dark fun factory can be understood as an assemblage including co-performances of service providers and visitors along with their interaction with non-human affordances. In so doing, this assemblage co-creates a participatory and affective space, as well as the desired experience(s) of fearful fun. The findings suggest theoretical and practical implications for researchers, lightest dark tourism suppliers, and visitors. For researchers, the findings provide a nuanced understanding of the process of how both visitors and hosts approach and practice performances in a dark fun factory. Suppliers can use the information to enhance the elements that effectively work to provide a quality experience for visitors. The findings inform visitors that they have an essential role in co-performing and co-creating the dark fun factory and experience.
... According to Zuckerman (1994), sensation-seekers strive for complex, novel, and intense experiences. Trait sensation-seeking has been shown to predict horror movie enjoyment (Cantor and Sparks, 1984;Edwards, 1984;Tamborini & Stiff, 1987), frequency of horror film attendance (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986), and enjoyment of scary video games (Lynch & Martins, 2015). However, some facets of sensation-seeking are more strongly correlated with interest in horror than others. ...
... These results are compatible with several studies on horror fandom reporting a positive, albeit small, correlation with sensation-seeking (e.g., Clasen et al., 2020;Hoffner & Levine, 2005;Lynch & Martins, 2015;Tamborini & Stiff, 1987;Zuckerman & Litle, 1986). Individuals who score high in sensation-seeking experience positive emotions in response to high arousal, including arousal stemming from negative stimulation due to fear (Zaleski, 1984;Zuckerman, 1979). ...
Why do people seek out frightening leisure activities such as horror films and haunted attractions, and does the experience benefit them in any way? In this article, we address these questions through two separate studies. In Study 1, we asked American horror fans ( n = 256) why they like horror and identified three overall types of horror fans, which we term “Adrenaline Junkies,” “White Knucklers,” and “Dark Copers.” In Study 2, we collected data from Danish visitors at a haunted house attraction ( n = 258) and replicated the findings from Study 1 by finding the same three types of horror fans. Furthermore, we show that these three types of horror fans report distinct benefits from horror experiences. Adrenaline Junkies reported immediate enjoyment, White Knucklers reported personal growth, and Dark Copers reported both. These results suggest that frightening leisure activities are not only an outlet for sensation-seeking, and that the allure of horror may have as much to do with learning and personal growth as it has with high-arousal fun.
... Given such a concrete (well-specified) fear, the player must decide on an appropriate avoidance behavior (Plutchik, 1982;Fanselow, 1994;Vachiratamporn et al., 2013). Lastly, in the phase of the Circa-Strike, e.g. when a rat is finally confronted with a predator (Fanselow, 1994), or, respectively, when the player meets the opponent, the being trembles in terror, instinct takes over and unreflected reactions follow in quick succession (Birbaumer and Schmidt, 2010;Lynch and Martins, 2015;Lin et al., 2017). ...
... Dark environments are typical for horror games since the lack of visual information causes the phylogenetically relevant human fear of the dark (Grillon et al., 1997;Perron, 2005b;Niedenthal, 2007Niedenthal, , 2009). Due to the diurnal cycle humans feel vulnerable at night (Grillon et al., 1997(Grillon et al., , 1999Mühlberger et al., 2008;Toet et al., 2009;Tajeran, 2012;Lynch and Martins, 2015). In alignment with the Defensive Behavior System (Fanselow, 1994), the VE's illumination could be separated into three stages. ...
Virtual environments (VEs) can evoke and support emotions, as experienced when playing emotionally arousing games. We theoretically approach the design of fear and joy evoking VEs based on a literature review of empirical studies on virtual and real environments as well as video games’ reviews and content analyses. We define the design space and identify central design elements that evoke specific positive and negative emotions. Based on that, we derive and present guidelines for emotion-inducing VE design with respect to design themes, colors and textures, and lighting configurations. To validate our guidelines in two user studies, we 1) expose participants to 360° videos of VEs designed following the individual guidelines and 2) immerse them in a neutral, positive and negative emotion-inducing VEs combining all respective guidelines in Virtual Reality. The results support our theoretically derived guidelines by revealing significant differences in terms of fear and joy induction.
... A fragmentação se refere à ampla gama de metodologias empregadas e às temáticas específicas. Seja essa metodologia experimental (Lynch & Martins, 2015); estudos de neuroimagem (Oosterwijk et al., 2015); avaliando a preferência por imagens neutras, positivas ou negativas visando entender essa preferência pelo estímulo negativo (Oosterwijk, 2017); ou, ainda, empregando a análise fenomenológica interpretativa (Fox, 2013). Dentro desse escopo, o construto vem sendo compreendido como unidimensional pelas pesquisas citadas. ...
... Como destacado, as correlações significativas e positivas foram percebidas em todos os fatores, salvo a "Aversão a Eventos Mórbidos", onde se encontrou uma correlação significativa e negativa. Ambos os resultados corroboram com estudos prévios (Zuckerman & Litle, 1986;Lynch & Martins, 2015). ...
Objetivo. Este estudo buscou construir e validar a Escala Multifatorial de Atração por Eventos Mórbidos (AMAEM). Método. Do primeiro estudo participaram 252 pessoas da população geral, as quais responderam à EMAEM e a perguntas sociodemográficas. A análise de componentes principais indicou uma estrutura de cinco fatores. No segundo estudo, a amostra foi de 609 pessoas da população geral, as quais responderam a EMAEM, escala de personalidade e busca de sensações. Resultado. A análise fatorial confirmatória apoaiou a adequação do modelo de cinco fatores. Adicionalmente, demonstrou ainda que os fatores da EMAEM podem contribuir com a compreensão de características da personalidade e sua associação com o engajamento em comportamentos antissociais.
... A study of video games with scenes depicting violence toward women also found players were more empathetic toward female characters (Ferguson & Colwell, 2020). A study of college students found women were more impacted by certain fear experiences in video games than others (Lynch & Martins, 2015), although the study did not code for the gender of characters in the games experiencing threatening or fearful situations. The way women process immersive experiences might be different because of socialization and historical depictions of women in certain roles within narratives in literature, popular media, and even video games . ...
... For example, Zillmann, Weaver, Mundorf, and Aust (1986) noted that in culture males are expected to be brave, females are expected to be fearful, and they are socially rewarded for fulfilling their expected role in line with those expectations (Lynch & Martins, 2015, p. 313). Hence, as Lynch and Martins (2015) noted, women tend to report less enjoyment for horror video games than men. ...
Video games have long held a spotty history in their narratives regarding women. Most research has examined large budget games and identified issues of simplification, oversexualization, and a general lack of agency among female characters. The present study explores the gaming niche of “indie”—or independent game developer—video games in their representations of women in particular with Never Alone, Gone Home, and Her Story. These games were released around the time frame of the GamerGate controversy—a controversy which drew attention to the treatment of women in gaming culture—and hence, the games are used to reflect on a potential shift in games culture following the controversy. This article argues that these game narratives emphasized multilayered female characterizations, female-to-female interactions, and internal dramas as a way to potentially reach female gamers and present an alternative, humanizing narrative on women.
... Fear elements Lynch and Martins (2015) surveyed 269 university students and found that more than half (53%) of the sample reported experiences of game-elicited fright. Among 53 game titles, participants listed which ones elicited fright; the survival horror genre (such as the Resident Evil and Silent Hills series) topped the list, comprising a significant percentage of the titles. ...
... Regarding potential individual differences, the survey results (Lynch & Martins, 2015) showed that no sex differences were found regarding fear responses. Male players reported greater enjoyment of playing frightening video games than female players. ...
Humans display fear responses not only toward potential threats in real environments but also toward various elements depicted in mediated content. Fear responses in interactive media such as video games and virtual reality (VR) have gained increasing attention due to the popularity of games in the horror and suspense genres and the commercialization of VR hardware. Fear elements, fear reactions, and coping reactions in video games and VR are reviewed in this entry. In video games, the horror game genre has topped the list of game types that elicit fear responses. In addition, participants have reported greater cognitive than physical reactions. In VR, participants have reported greater fear of plausibility illusion elements than place illusion elements. In addition, when playing a VR horror game, participants have most frequently employed an approach reaction, followed by cognitive avoidance (“this is not real”), physical and mental disengagement, and self‐help strategies. Participants have displayed response‐as‐if‐real (RAIR) reactions in VR games. In one study, a residual fear of being attacked from behind while playing the VR horror game was reported by some participants the next day. Empirical evidence has shown that greater emotional responses (in both self‐reported and psychophysiological responses) are greater in VR than in non‐VR video games. Understanding audiences' fear responses in video games and VR allows researchers and the industry to design effective intervention and training materials.
... If the player can choose a virtual device to play, the sense of fear and immersion are unparalleled [8]. Different people's gender and level of empathy for thrill-seeking desires can affect how it feels to experience fear [9]. ...
Horror survival games, as a crucial segment of the video game industry, are highly regrded for their ability to evoke excitement, suspense and the challenge of overcoming obstacles and fears through wit and skill. This study delves into the impact of players' ability to confront monsters in horror survival games on their level of immersion and fear, and how these two psychological states mutually enhance the gaming experience. This research applies Python for natural language processing analyses, including sentiment analysis, keyword frequency analysis, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, and K-Means clustering to uncover the main trends in player feedback, which is based on 5,000 user comments scraped from the Steam platform on two famous horror games, "Resident Evil 7" and "Outlast 2." Additionally, data on players' personal experiences of fear and immersion in the games are collected through surveys. The results show that the sensation of fear and successfully confronting monsters significantly enhances players' immersion of being completely engaged in the game, highlighting the importance of balancing challenge and player's ability to make choices in game design. This study provides valuable insights into understanding the psychological dynamics of players in horror survival games, guiding game designers and developers on how to create more engaging and satisfying gaming experiences that meet players' requirements.
... Compared with other media types, video games provide more realistic, vivid, and engaging media content and experiences (Anderson & Bushman, 2001;Gentile & Stone, 2005). Some researchers believe video games could trigger negative emotions such as fear, guilt, and frustration (Hartmann et al., 2010;Lynch & Martins, 2015;Przybylski et al., 2014). In contrast, others argue that these experiences allow children to train to regulate negative emotions, promoting social-emotional skills (Granic et al., 2014;Toh & Kirschner, 2023). ...
Background
Recent studies have revealed a negative relationship between children's digital media use and social–emotional development. However, few studies distinguish between different digital devices and the different functions they provide that may lead to different outcomes.
Methods
This study explored the relationship between young children's time spent on various digital devices and their social–emotional delay based on a survey of 1182 preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) in rural China. Children's social–emotional delay was assessed through a validated screening tool (ASQ‐SE II).
Results
Children's time spent on television, computers, tablets, or smartphones was not associated with their social–emotional delay. However, their risk of social–emotional delay increased as their time spent on game consoles increased. This relationship was reflected in five of the seven behavioural areas of children's social–emotional development (i.e., self‐regulation, compliance, affect, social communications, and interactions with people). Moreover, it did not vary between children with different socioeconomic statuses.
Conclusions
This study suggests a possible relationship between children's social–emotional delay and video games, which might need to be paid more attention to than other media types.
... Scholars such as Bantinaki (2012) and Tamborini (2009) have both argued for horror as a hedonic emotion, with the former suggesting horror as a "welcoming stance" toward an otherwise abhorrent mediated experience, and the latter discussing horror as a sense of mastery over one's own fears. From both perspectives, state horror reactions are often understood as hedonic and likewise, mastering the emotional demands associated with horrific content broadly should be an enjoyable experience (Lynch & Martins, 2015;Lin, Wu, & Tao, 2018). ...
This handbook provides a strong collection of communication- and psychology-based theories and models on media entertainment, which can be used as a knowledge resource for any academic and applied purpose. Its 41 chapters offer explanations of entertainment that audiences find in any kind of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, from classic novels to VR video games, from fictional stories to mediated sports. As becomes clear in this handbook, the history of entertainment research teaches us not to forget that even if a field is converging to a seemingly dominant perspective, paradigm, and methodology, there are more views, alternative approaches, and different yet equally illuminative ways of thinking about the field. Young scholars may find here innovative ways to reconcile empirical-theoretical approaches to the experience of entertainment with such alternative views. And there are numerous entertainment-related phenomena in contemporary societies that still fit the „bread and circuses-“ perspective of the initial Frankfurt School thinking. So while the mission of the present handbook is to compile and advance current theories about media entertainment, scholars active or interested in the topic are invited to also consider the historic roots of the field and the great diversity it has featured over the past nearly 100 years. Many lessons can be learned from this history, and future innovations in entertainment theory may just as likely emerge from refining those approaches compiled in the present handbook as from building on neglected, forgotten, or marginalized streams of scholarship.
... Examples of this assumption about horror fans can easily be found in public discourse, from film critic reviews to policy discussions about violence in movies and video games. Previous research on horror fans and empathy, which took place largely in the 1980s, does provide some support for the notion that horror fans are lower in empathy (Hoffner & Levine, 2005; see also Lynch & Martins, 2015, for evidence in video games). However, as discussed in the Introduction, many of these studies suffer from methodological or conceptual limitations. ...
The horror genre portrays some of the most graphic and violent scenes in media. How and why some people find enjoyment in such a graphic genre is an age-old question. One hypothesis is that people lower in prosocial traits such as empathy and compassion are more likely to enjoy horror. We found evidence against this hypothesis across three studies. Study 1 demonstrated that enjoyment of horror movies was unrelated to affective empathy, negatively associated with coldheartedness, and positively associated with cognitive empathy. A preregistered follow-up study found that measures of empathy and coldheartedness were unrelated to how many horror movies a participant had seen. In Study 3, enjoyment of horror movies was unrelated to the amount of money a participant decided to donate to a less fortunate participant. These findings contradict beliefs from the public about horror fans possessing lower levels of prosocial traits such as empathy and compassion. They also put into question findings from older studies about the relationship between empathy and enjoyment of horror media.
... The study also contributes to an emerging HCI and games literature on so-called uncomfortable experiences in games [9,36], including research on 'emotionally challenging' game experiences [10]. This literature suggests that negative affect elicited by games can be constitutive of enjoyment, which is particularly evident in the case of horror games [21,53,56]. Such games use a variety of techniques to elicit negative affect in players, and are often evaluated on their ability to elicit such affect. ...
Despite the prevalence and relevance of jump scares in horror video games, there is little empirical research on them. While HCI research commonly uses horror games as experimental stimuli, even less scientific research exists on what makes a jump scare in a game more or less scary. The present between-subject study (n=60) addresses this by investigating whether jump scare intensity-measured physiologically and subjectively-scales with task difficulty. We triggered in-game jump scares at increasing levels of mental workload across four counterbalanced conditions, manipulated using N-back tasks of varying difficulty. Results demonstrate a significant linear relationship between mental workload and physiological arousal. However, this is not the case for subjective perception of arousal elicited by the jump scare. These findings have design implications for horror games. They show that the level of physiological arousal caused by a jump scare can be controlled by changing the difficulty of an in-game task that necessitates a substantial amount of mental work at the same time.
... Yeh & Kwok, 2014;Lynch & Martins;Romero et al, 2010;Varela, Sánchez- Sosa, Biggs & Luis; se encontró que las mujeres reportan una mayor intensidad de emociones negativas, de frustración y excitación negativa que los hombres. Por lo tanto, podemos decir, que ellas se sienten con mayor libertad para expresar emociones con una mayor carga negativa que ellos, dado que durante el proceso de socialización a estas se les permite expresar con mayor libertad su sentir(Reyes y Reidl, 2015).En lo que respecta a las emociones de autorreproche y emociones de aplanamiento no se encontraron diferencias estadísticamente significativas, lo que indica que, al momento de conocer los resultados del examen reprobado, tanto hombres como mujeres reportan una intensidad parecida en ambos rubros, cabe mencionar queSvensson & Lars-Göran (1999) no encontraron diferencias en la intensidad de las emociones, la conclusión de estos fue, que desde hace décadas hay diferencia en la crianza de los suecos.En lo que respecta a las estrategias de afrontamiento, las mujeres reportaron utilizar más las estrategias asertivas y autocríticas, como señala Villavicencio y ...
... Impact levels of PI and PSI can vary according to the main objective of the environment. For example, Lynch and Martins' (2015) survey study examined the fright experience in immersive VR games. Later further categorized fear elements and identified the strategies and reactions toward fear elements. ...
Rapidly growing virtual reality (VR) technologies and techniques have gained importance over the past few years, and academics and practitioners have been searching for efficient visualizations in VR. To date, the emphasis has been on the employment of game technologies. Despite the growing interest and potential, visualization studies have lacked a common baseline in the transition period of 2D visualizations to immersive ones. To this end, the presented study aims to provide a systematic literature review that explains the state-of-the-art research and future trends in visualization in virtual reality. The research framework is grounded in empirical and theoretical works of visualization. We characterize the reviewed literature based on three dimensions: (a) Connection with visualization background and theory, (b) Evaluation and design considerations for virtual reality visualization, and (c) Empirical studies. The results from this systematic review suggest that: (1) There are only a few studies that focus on creating standard guidelines for virtual reality, and each study individually provides a framework or employs previous studies on traditional 2D visualizations; (2) With the myriad of advantages provided for visualization and virtual reality, most of the studies prefer to use game engines; (3) Although game engines are extensively used, they are not convenient for critical scientific studies; and (4) 3D versions of traditional statistical visualization techniques, such as bar plots and scatter plots, are still commonly used in the data visualization context. This systematic review attempts to add a clear picture of the emerging contexts, different elements, and interdependencies to the literature.
... In fact, for sensation-seekers, horror movies trigger not only aversive and negative emotions, but also positive ones . Lynch and Martins (2015) also found a weak positive correlation between sensationseeking traits and enjoyment of fearful experiences. ...
The hedonism principle assumes that people pursue pleasure and positive experiences; however, we often observe that people voluntarily seek negative experiences in various daily settings—sometimes interpreted as the manifestation of “morbid curiosity.” This study attempted to test three hypotheses on novelty/curiosity, metacognitive miscalibration, and emotional arousal, explaining people’s voluntary viewing of negative images. The participants chose whether to view an image that was positively or negatively valenced. The results revealed that the rate of choosing to see positive and negative images decreased when the participants had already seen the images previously. This result supports the novelty/curiosity hypothesis. However, contrary to the metacognitive miscalibration and the emotional arousal hypothesis, participants overestimated their negative feelings prior to viewing the negative images; individual differences in sensation-seeking did not predict people’s choice of viewing negative images, and emotional arousal did not have an inverted-U relationship with choice behavior. These findings indicate a potential mechanism underlying people’s behavior to voluntarily seek negative information; nevertheless, participants’ voluntary choice of negative images did not seem to be explained by these factors.
... emotions and motivation in a screen setting do not convey their original, i.e., real-life psychological and behavioral implications. For example, under real-life conditions, emotions provide information about the environment, so that a hazard elicits fear, promoting adaptive behavioral responses (Lynch and Martins, 2015). However, this cascade is rendered obsolete when presented with fear-eliciting stimuli on a screen under laboratory conditions. ...
This commentary addresses the discrepancies in measuring and interpreting frontalalpha asymmetries (FAAs) as electrophysiological makers for motivation and affectidentified by a recent review (Sabu et al., 2022). Specifically, the authors aim to identifyunder which circumstances FAAs yield meaningful results and index emotional ormotivational states. Thus, they categorize and review the stimuli used in the literatureinto five categories being less to more effective in eliciting emotions: (1) images andsounds, (2) videos, (3) real cues, (4) games, and (5) other tasks. As a result, the potencyto elicit pronounced FAAs seems to vary as a function of modality with planar 2Dstimuli being less potent to elicit emotions as opposed to more realistic and engagingstimuli. Nevertheless, no category induces FAAs consistently, hence casting doubt onwhether FAAs are a universally applicable measurement for emotion and motivationsolely dependent on the potency of the stimulus. I argue that potency as an ordinallyscaled factor does not account for FAAs because different stimuli types belong to differentcategories. Hence, if FAAs carry meaning, they might be specific to the domain in which they occur.
... In his quantitative study in the USA, Anderson (2004) found an association between video games and aggressive social behaviours of adolescents. In a later study conducted via an online survey carried out among 269 undergraduate students from Asia, Africa, North America and Latin America, Lynch & Martins (2015) reported that 53% of the video game players perceived video games as fright inspiring things and that the degrees of fright depended on game-induced fear, individual difference, consumption of frightening content, and their frequency. In their experimental study in the USA, Gentile et al., (2017) posited that violent video games could increase the accessibility of serious thoughts by activating the sympathetic nervous system. ...
Online video games have become popular among teenage students and have drawn the attention of both parents and teachers in Nepal. We report an analysis of secondary students' experiences of playing online video games and parents' perception of their children's game behaviour. We employed online semi-structured interviews with students and parents, and observation of students' game activities. This paper reports on how online video games developed students' independent study skills and autonomous learning abilities. Video games can be an assistive tool to engage teenage learners in collaborative and autonomous learning activities. Parents, however, perceived that video games unless specifically designed for educational purposes, can negatively impact students' health. Findings suggest that the appropriate integration of video games into educational practices can strengthen students' self-learning habits and develop their capabilities.
... Finally, we included specific horror content that participants personally and actively faced at certain exploration points to stimulate punctual event-related fear responses. In particular, disfigured humans, zombie-like fantasy creatures, animals and sounds coming from doors opening and human voices were included in the VR environment given their demonstrated high fear elicitation capabilities [28]. To further confirm the fearful effect of the VR environment, the subjects were asked to score the induced fear level (i.e., SASF).. ...
The investigation of the physiological and pathological processes involved in fear perception is complicated due to the difficulties in eliciting and measuring fear's complex construct. This study proposes a novel approach to inducing and measuring subjective fear and its physiological correlates by combining virtual reality (VR) with a mixed-effects model based on skin conductance (SC). Specifically, we developed a new VR scenario applying specific guidelines derived from horror movies and video games. Such a VR environment was used to induce fear in eighteen volunteers in an experimental protocol, including two relaxation scenarios and a neutral virtual environment. The SC signal was acquired throughout the experiment, and after each virtual scenario, the emotional state and fear perception level were assessed using psychometric scales. We statistically evaluated the greatest sympathetic activation induced by the fearful scenario compared to the others, showing significant results for most SC-derived features.
Finally, we developed a rigorous mixed-effects model to explain the perceived fear as a function of the SC features. Model-fitting results
showed a significant relationship between the fear perception scores and a combination of features extracted from both fast- and slow-varying SC components, proposing a novel solution for a more objective fear assessment
... For example, studies have shown that innate fears that are frequent in children, such as the fear of darkness, tend to gradually diminish with time as result of the habituation phenomenon [51,52]. Although there are similarities in physiological fears across humans [11], the differences in learned fears among individuals is important when establishing personal fears in games [53]. These personal differences can be associated with past experiences, such as phobias [47] and trauma [54], or with individual characteristics, such as gender and age [55,56]. ...
Fear is a basic human emotion that can be triggered by different situations, which vary from person to person. However, game developers usually design horror games based on a general knowledge about what most players fear, which does not guarantee a satisfying horror experience for everyone. When a horror game aims at intensifying the fear evoked in individual players, having useful information about the fears of the current player is vital to promote more frightening experiences. This work presents a new method to create adaptive virtual reality horror games, which combines player modeling techniques and an adaptive agent-based system that can identify what individual players fear and adapt the content of the game to intensify the fear evoked in players. The main contributions of this work are: (1) a new method to identify individual player’s fears using only gameplay data and machine learning techniques; and (2) a new agent-based adaptive game system that can track the horror intensity experienced by players and moderate the use of the horror elements feared by individual players in the game. The results show that the proposed method is capable of correctly identifying players’ fears (average accuracy of 79.4% for new players). In addition, results of a user study and statistical significance tests (ANOVA and post-hoc analyses) suggest that our method can intensify the fear evoked in players and positively improve immersion and flow.
... Bunun dışında dijital oyunlar bazı temel duyguların ortaya çıkmasına da neden olabilirler (Hemenover ve Bowman, 2018). Örneğin üniversite öğrencileri ile yürütülen bir araştırmada katılımcıların çoğunun dijital oyun oynadıkları esnada yüksek düzeyde korku hissettikleri rapor edilmiştir (Lynch ve Martins, 2015). Bazı oyunlarda (örneğin Resident Evil) bazı duygular (örneğin korku) ortaya çıkarılmak istenmektedir ve oyunun en önemli amaçlarından birisi de budur. ...
Bu bölümde; dijital oyunların kişilik, duygu ve davranışlar üzerindeki etkileri ele
alınmış, dijital oyun oynama alışkanlıklarının oluşmasında ve devam etmesinde rol
oynayan, güdüleyen unsurlar, özellikle de psikolojik ihtiyaçlar çerçevesinden teorik
olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Dijital oyun oynama alışkanlıklarının kişilik üzerindeki olası
etkileri ve tartışmalı bir konu olan dijital oyunlar ve saldırganlık ilişkisi ele alınarak
dijital oyunlar ve kişilik arasındaki ilişkiler karşılıklı olarak incelenmiştir. Dijital oyun
oynamanın olumsuz ve olası olumlu sonuçları ele alınmış, bu konudaki tartışmalar
gözden geçirilmiştir. Sonuç kısmında ise dijital oyunların olumsuz sonuçlarını azaltmak
için bağımlılık düzeyindeki dijital oyun oynama alışkanlıklarına dair yapılması
gerekenlerden söz edilmiştir ve bu konularla ilgili olarak çocuklara, gençlere, yetişkinlere,
anne babalara ve öğretmenlere yönelik önerilere yer verilmiştir.
... Impact levels of PI and PSI can vary according to the main objective of the environment. For example, Lynch and Martins' (2015) survey study examined the fright experience in immersive VR games. Later further categorized fear elements and identified the strategies and reactions towards fear elements. ...
Rapidly growing virtual reality (VR) technologies and techniques have gained importance over the past few years, and academics and practitioners have been searching for efficient visualizations in VR. To date, emphasis has been on the employment of game technologies. Despite the growing interest and discussion, visualization studies have lacked a common baseline in the transition period of 2D visualizations to immersive ones. To this end, the presented study aims to provide a systematic literature review that explains the state-of-the-art research and future trends on visualization in virtual reality. The research framework is grounded in empirical and theoretical works of visualization. We characterize the reviewed literature based on three dimensions: (a) Connection with visualization background and theory, (b) Evaluation and design considerations for virtual reality visualization, and (c) Empirical studies. The results from this systematic review suggest that: (1) There are only a few studies that focus on creating standard guidelines for virtual reality, and each study individually provides a framework or employs previous studies on traditional 2D visualizations; (2) With the myriad of advantages provided for visualization and virtual reality, most of the studies prefer to use game engines; (3) Although game engines are extensively used, they are not convenient for critical scientific studies; and (4) 3D versions of traditional statistical visualization techniques, such as bar plots and scatter plots, are still commonly used in the data visualization context. This systematic review attempts to add to the literature a clear picture of the emerging contexts, different elements, and their interdependencies.
... (Cantor, 2009) asserts that previous experiences do play a strong role in evoking emotional responses, especially from the real world, however in the virtual world these are less intense than the same happening in the real world. (Cantor, 2009) and (Lynch and Martins, 2015) argue that previous experiences may allow participants to cope with fear based scenarios more effectively and allow a more balanced reaction towards these events. ...
... Yet, other emotions are also common to gaming and receiving increased academic attention. Lynch and Martins (2015) found that over half of their sample of college-aged video game players could recall instances in which a video game caused them to experience fear, and this fear was intensified when games were perceived as more interactive and more realistic. Lin (2017) examined fear experience in virtual reality (VR) systems and found evidence of "residual fear" as long as 24 hours following gameplay, attributing these results to the increased immersion provided by VR-based horror games. ...
From a media psychology perspective, an important feature of digital media are the “bottom-up” and “top-down” affective experiences that digital media trigger in their users. Emotions play a critical role in motivating our selection of digital media, guiding our processing of the content of digital media, and describing and determining the effects of digital media. The current chapter reviews literature and current findings on emotions and digital media, with specific focus on emotion regulation in interactive media systems (such as virtual and augmented reality), on-demand entertainment media, and social media applications. As digital technologies evolve, our emotional connections with them, their content, and their users become equally complex, which is the focus of our chapter. Three features of digital media with specific relevance to emotional regulation are explored: interactivity, on-demand accessibility, and their networked nature.
... Adapted from Lin (2017) and Lynch and Martins (2015), participants answered the degree to which their child was frightened after encountering a school shooting news: does not want to recall the experience of encountering a school shooting news; was too scared to sleep after encountering a school shooting news; was afraid to go to school after encountering a school shooting news; was afraid that school shootings can happen to him/her; was afraid that school shootings can happen to somebody that he/ she knows. Answers were recorded on a 7-point scale, from 1 = completely disagree to 7 = completely agree. ...
As news involving violence can frighten children, people worry that news portrayals of gun violence are often appalling. Based on cultivation theory and the theory of cognitive development, this study examined parents’ perceptions of the children’s exposure and reactions to news coverage of school shootings. A survey of U.S. parents (N = 266) demonstrated that children’s exposure to news coverage of school shootings is positively related to children’s frightened responses, according to the parents’ perspective. Parents reported that children more exposed to the news are more likely to perceive the world as dangerous. Children’s frightened reactions were a mediator that explains the relationship. Parents also answered that depending on children’s cognitive developmental stages, children showed different coping strategies to frightening news. Parental mediation did not have a significant relationship with children’s frightened responses. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
... External stimuli and their individual perception can evoke and determine emotions (Plutchik, 1982;Ellsworth and Smith, 1988). From an evolutionary point of view, emotions prepare the human body to react to dangers and to social situations (Plutchik, 1982;Lynch and Martins, 2015). Even awareness of virtuality cannot suppress these instincts (Baird, 2000). ...
Impaired decision-making leads to the inability to distinguish between advantageous and disadvantageous choices. The impairment of a person’s decision-making is a common goal of gambling games. Given the recent trend of gambling using immersive Virtual Reality it is crucial to investigate the effects of both immersion and the virtual environment (VE) on decision-making. In a novel user study, we measured decision-making using three virtual versions of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The versions differed with regard to the degree of immersion and design of the virtual environment. While emotions affect decision-making, we further measured the positive and negative affect of participants. A higher visual angle on a stimulus leads to an increased emotional response. Thus, we kept the visual angle on the Iowa Gambling Task the same between our conditions. Our results revealed no significant impact of immersion or the VE on the IGT. We further found no significant difference between the conditions with regard to positive and negative affect. This suggests that neither the medium used nor the design of the VE causes an impairment of decision-making. However, in combination with a recent study, we provide first evidence that a higher visual angle on the IGT leads to an effect of impairment.
... Since our hearts are innervated by branches of the autonomic nervous system, these threats will cause an immediate acceleration in heart rate (Cacioppo et al. 2000). Our primal survival system has no time to process whether these threats are real, as it instinctively adapts our physiology to the perceived threat (Lynch 2018). The influence of threats on the autonomic nervous system can also be indexed by heart rate variability (HRV). ...
Compared to traditional screen-based media, virtual reality (VR) generally leads to stronger feelings of presence. The current study aimed to investigate whether playing games in VR resulted in a stronger sense of presence than playing on a TV, and whether these feelings of presence affected players’ emotional and physiological responses to the games. Two experiments were conducted among 128 students, comparing the effects of playing either a survival horror game ( N = 59) or a first-person shooter ( N = 69) on a TV or in VR on physiological and subjective fear, hostility and enjoyment. Results showed that playing games in VR resulted in a stronger sense of presence, lower heart rate variability and a stronger subjective sense of fear. The feeling of presence thereby mediated the effects of VR on fear. The effects of playing a first-person shooter in VR on hostility were mixed, and gaming in VR was not more enjoyable than on TV. Regardless of the type of game or display medium, hostility increased significantly post-play. This study provides evidence that commercial VR games can affect feelings of presence and the physiological and emotional state of players.
... Evolutionary humanists have had much to say about literature and literary analysis Jonsson 2020), and less to say about film, television, and especially video games (but see, for example, Kjeldgaard-Christiansen 2020). Evolutionary work on audiovisual media more frequently originates in psychological studies (such as Breuer, Pietschmann, and Liebold 2018;Lynch and Martins 2015). These studies typically focus on the media user-their media preferences and media-elicited actions and experiences-and not on the media products per se. ...
... Although fundamental fears, such as the unknown, are inherent to the human being [6], more specific fears, such as darkness and apparitions, are individual and can vary from person to person, depending mainly on personal experiences [9]. According to Lynch and Martins [23], similarities across humans in physiological fear experience exist, however differences among individuals also play an important role when establishing personal fears for specific horror elements. These individual differences can be related with past experiences, such as traumas [33] and phobias [27], or with individual characteristics, such as age [5] and gender [16]. ...
Horror games are designed to induce fear in players. Although fundamental fears, such as the unknown, are inherent to the human being, more specific fears, such as darkness and apparitions, are individual and can vary from person to person. When a game aims at intensifying the fear evoked in individual players, having useful information about the fears of the current player is vital to promote more frightening experiences. This paper explores fear modeling and presents a new method to identify what players fear in a virtual reality horror game. The proposed method uses machine learning and player modeling techniques to create a model of players' fears, which can be used to adapt in-game horror elements to intensify the fear evoked in players. The paper presents the proposed method and evaluates its accuracy and real-time performance in a virtual reality horror game.
... Game-specific adaptive music is often desired and very positively received by players [68], but it should also be noted that a concurrently published study found no difference in psychometric measures for custom or unrelated music [62], and an earlier study by Tan et al. [74] found players performed best with unrelated music. (Although it should be noted that neither work was in VR. ) We note that a lot of prior work on music in games has focused on the horror genre, wherein music plays an important role [43,79]: how this role would be impacted in a VR horror game will have to be explored in future work. One study by Lin has shown reported that sound effects were among the most fear-causing game elements in a VR horror game [40], however this game did not feature music. ...
How much music contributes to player experience (PX) in virtual reality (VR) games remains unclear in the games user research literature. A core factor of PX in VR games that has not been studied before (in relation to audio or otherwise) is time perception. Thus, we provide the first empirical exploration of how music affects time perception in a VR game. In a user study (N=64), we investigated the effects of music on PX and time perception (operationalized as retrospective time estimation). Participants retrospectively perceived time to pass significantly quicker in the VR game when music was present, but reported no difference in PX components, including immersion. This contributes to ongoing discourse on the surprising lack of music effects in VR games. Moreover, our results highlight the need to re-conceptualize our understanding of the relationship between time perception and immersion in games.
... Other researchers have also focused on specific emotions elicited by game play and how elements of the game's content might magnify them. For example, Lynch and Martins (2015) have focused on how elements of game play might elicit fear and fight-or-flight reactions. Similarly, Possler and colleagues (Chapter 5, this volume) have explicated how video game graphics might elicit feelings of awe. ...
That video games can elicit emotional responses in players is perhaps the least controversial claim that can be made about video games. However, there is a lack of unity among video game researchers regarding the specifics of how video games elicit emotions, how players manage these emotional responses, and how video-game induced emotions affect subsequent decision making. Video games offer unique experiences as compared with other media; whereas emotional responses to purely narrative media, such as film and TV, are more consistent with empathic and non-agentic emotions, the emotional responses to video games are more consistent with vicarious emotional responses and agentic emotions. Yet, despite these differences, only a little amount of research and theory has been successful in adapting and modifying research on narrative media to build an overarching theoretical framework that could guide examinations of the emotional responses elicited by video games. To date, the progress made by various researchers has been largely isolated and targeted toward specific questions rather than general processes. This chapter seeks to develop the building blocks of an overarching theoretical perspective that could guide future research. The current literature of the emotional experiences underlying video game play is described in the hope that the efforts of various researchers can be focused toward a more unified theoretical perspective. Shortcomings of current theoretical understandings are outlined and solutions are proposed for overcoming them.
... Horror games introduce very similar and evolutionarily relevant enemies and inhospitable environments to induce fear and avoidance in the player. However, the flight-response of the horror game is enhanced by the player's perception of confronting hostile agents too powerful to defeat in a direct combat (Clasen, 2017, Chapter 13;Kjeldgaard-Christiansen & Clasen, 2019;Lynch & Martins, 2015). By contrast, Doom invites a confident and motivated fight-response. ...
Agency is a fundamental motive factor that subsumes competence, assertiveness, and individual goal-pursuit. It is contrasted with communion, which subsumes social and self-effacing motives. This chapter analyzes the 2016 id Software video game Doom as an agency simulator. Through narrative setup, gameplay mechanics, and audiovisual presentation, Doom submerges players in a first-person fantasy of unmitigated agency. Players experience total control over their environment and dominance over the creatures inhabiting it. The appeal of this scenario, I argue, is simulational. Just as humans may enjoy vicarious romance through romantic comedies or the thrill of discovery through detective novels, they may enjoy to simulate powerful agency in a risk-free virtual environment.
... The association is likely fed by humans' innate fear of the dark and the maladaptive uncertainty that it represents: We do not know what is out there, but we had better assume that it is something bad so as not to take an unnecessary risk (Nesse 2005). People frequently rank darkness as among their most potent fears (e.g., Lynch and Martins 2015). Darkness characterizes also the depictions of Disney's more recent, covert villains. ...
Disney's animated villains have recently changed to show less conventionally villainous traits: They look and express themselves more like sympathetic characters, and they are usually only outed as villains late in the plot. This shift has prompted much academic commentary on the psychological and cultural significance of Disney's new villains. We add to the existing literature on Disney's new villains in two ways. First, we analyze shifts in the vocalizations of villains between the 1990s and 2010s. Second, we integrate this analysis in a biocultural account of Disney's shifting overall representations of villains. We argue that while Disney has long employed evolutionarily explicable cues to villainy, such as a foreign accent and an unappealing exterior, the company is now reacting to challenges to norms of social representation that proscribe the linking of such overt traits with immorality. Consequently, recent Disney films do not employ socially stigmatizing cues. However, Disney continues to employ nonstigmatizing cues, such as evil laughter and abiding anger, because these cues foster antipathy in audiences at no sociomoral risk.
In this chapter of our exploration into the marriage of virtual reality and psychology, we delve into the captivating realm of immersiveness and its profound impact on cognitive functions. This chapter explores how the immersive qualities of virtual reality can captivate and influence the human mind, driving cognitive engagement within virtual environments. By eliciting deep and authentic emotional responses, VR environments make the study of cognitive functions and emotions more ecologically valid. A key focus of the chapter is the investigation of problem-solving within virtual reality. It examines the cognitive processes at play when individuals are immersed in digital worlds, addressing how VR affects problem-solving abilities, decision-making, and critical thinking. Central to this discussion is a compelling case study titled “Processes of Planning in a Virtual Reality Experience: The Link Between Arousal and Problem Solving.” This research explores the connection between emotional arousal and problem-solving skills in a VR setting, highlighting the interplay between emotional states and cognitive abilities. As the chapter progresses, it becomes evident that immersiveness in VR has the potential to transform not only the study of cognitive functions but also practical applications in education and therapy. The intersection of emotions, cognitive processes, and VR’s immersive qualities offers vast opportunities for researchers, practitioners, and enthusiasts.
Purpose
The purpose of the current research is to present an explanatory framework for how people selectively attend to privacy-related news information about LBA depending on the extent to which they know about LBA already as well as their appraisals of privacy threats and efficacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed model was tested using structural equation modeling based on a total of 522 useable responses obtained from an online survey.
Findings
The results revealed two different approaches to information exposure: (1) people choose to seek out privacy-related news articles when their persuasion knowledge and perceived threat level are high, whereas (2) they tend to avoid such information when perceived threats accompany fear as well as psychological discomfort, or when they believe that they are knowledgeable about LBA practices and highly capable of protecting their privacy.
Originality/value
With the development of real-time location-tracking technologies, the practice of LBA is becoming increasingly popular. As such, however, concerns about data collection and privacy are also on the rise, garnering a great deal of media attention. Despite the importance and constant stream of news reports on the subject, a comprehensive understanding of consumers' privacy assessments and information consumption remains underexamined. By incorporating the persuasion knowledge model and extended parallel process model, the current research presents an explanatory framework for consumers' privacy perceptions and information choice.
Background
The emotion of fear bears a survival significance enabling animals to be highly vigilant in contexts of uncertainty. Expectedly, not all information available in the environment can be processed. Given that a major goal is to get rid of the source of fear in a fearful situation, the current study therefore hypothesized that information relating to the fear source would be better attended to and recalled than contextual information, which was validated by comparing participants’ recall of different types of information presented in a fearful VR gaming context.
Methodology
Fifty-four participants were divided into two groups and finished a specific segment of a VR game with different fear levels.
Results
No significant difference in recall performance on the questions about the appearance of the fear source and the questions about the interaction with the source was observed between the fear and less-fear groups. Yet, contextual information was better recalled than information related to the fear source in both groups. Regardless of whether the contextual information was provided beforehand or not, participants still tended to focus primarily on the environment in the gameplay. Also, the immersiveness of the gameplay was positively related to participants’ fear level.
Discussion
The tendency of attending to contextual information was speculated to be unconditional, in line with the risk calculation observed in prey when situated in less familiar contexts. It was suggested to further validate the present primarily findings by adopting VR headset with eye-tracking function in future studies. Lastly, an understanding of fear’s effect on memorization might also provide some information for developing future survival horror games.
Önce basit çocuk oyuncakları ile başlayıp, daha sonra kutu oyunları ile tarihsel gelişimini sürdüren oyun sektörü, bilgisayarların hayatımıza girmesi ile çok daha farklı bir boyuta ulaşmıştır. Bilgisayar destekli grafiklerin yaygınlaşması ile ortaya video oyun diye bir kavram çıkmıştır. Her zaman aynı yoğunlukta ilgi ile karşılanmamış olsa bile video oyun sektörü, günümüzde hem bütçe hem de yaygınlık olarak eğlence sektörünün birçok alanını geçmiş bulunmaktadır. Artık bir çocuk oyalama aktivitesi olarak görülmediği gibi bir spor dalı (e-spor) olarak bile kabul edilmektedir. Farklı öğelerden oluşan ve özelliklerine göre farklı şekillerde sınıflandırılabilen video oyunların başarıları arkasında birçok farklı etken bulunmaktadır. Bu etkenler oyun türleri arasında da değişiklik gösterebilmektedir. 2 boyutlu bulmaca platform türü oyunlar özelinde bir değerlendirme yapıldığında, diğer tüm elemanların anlatıyı (narration) destekleyici unsurlar olarak kullanıldıkları göz önünde bulundurulursa, bu etkenlerin en önemlilerinden birinin senaryo olduğu görülebilmektedir. Bu çalışmada öncelikle nitel araştırma yöntemi kullanılarak literatür taraması yapılmış, video oyunların tarihsel gelişimi ve görsel hikâye anlatımının öğelerine değinilmiş; video oyunların oynanma sebepleri, bulmaca platform türü ve senaryonun önemi üzerinde durulmuştur. Ardından Thomas Was Alone, Limbo ve Braid oyunları derinlemesine incelenerek bu oyunların edebiyat, din ve resim gibi alanlarla olan etkileşimleri ortaya konulurken senaryonun bu oyunların başarısına etkisi tartışılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonunda, video oyunlarda oyuncunun ilgisini yönlendiren birçok farklı eleman olsa da, senaryonun asıl güdüleyici unsur olup olmadığının görülmesi amaçlanmıştır. Böylece bir sanat alanı olarak oyunlar ve senaryoları geniş bir literatüre sahip olsa da platform oyunlarının özelinde eksik kalmış senaryo konusuna yoğunlaşılması ve hem alanda çalışma yapan araştırmacılara hem de sektördeki oyun tasarımcılarına destek olması istenmektedir. Bu çalışma yazarın yüksek lisans tezinden türetilmiştir.
Virtual environments and games are often used to evoke positive emotions. Contrary the survival horror genre aims to induce negative feelings in players. The effects of playing fear-inducing games in virtual reality (VR) is rather unexplored, since research mainly focuses on positive emotions. To investigate the relationship between immersion, presence and negative emotion induction, we compared repeated horror game usage between playing on desktop computers, in VR, and smart substitutional reality (SSR), which supplements VR with additional haptic and thermal stimuli. Conducting a longitudinal study utilizing questionnaires, observations and physiological measurements, we expected an increase of fear using VR and SSR due to the increased immersion. Physiological data was not analyzed due to huge data loss, while observations and self-reports revealed contradictory results. Behavioral data showed stronger expression of fear in VR and SSR. Presence was increased in the VR and SSR groups compared to PC, further a mediation of emotion induction via presence was confirmed. Altogether, the reception of horror games within VR or SSR is associated with strong emotional reactions for selected individuals. Future research should take methodological lessons learned into account.
The horror genre portrays some of the most graphic and violent scenes in media. Because of this, those who enjoy horror may be perceived to be deficient in prosocial traits. In Study 1, I found empirical evidence for the anecdotal observation that people perceive horror fans to be low in empathy, compassion, and kindness. In Study 2, I found that enjoyment of horror movies is either unrelated or positively related to measures of empathy and compassion. In Study 3, participants who had previously reported how much they enjoyed five horror subgenres played a dictator game. Enjoyment of horror and the five subgenres was unrelated to how much money a participant decided to donate to a less fortunate participant. These findings contradict long-held beliefs from the public about horror fans possessing lower levels of empathy and compassion. They also question older findings about the relationship between empathy and horror fandom, suggesting that the relationship has little to do with how much one enjoys horror or the type of horror they enjoy.
Gamer rage, rage induced by digital games, is an understudied area, especially from children’s perspective. This study explores children’s stories of the reasons and manifestations of their gamer rage. Data consisted of 31 children’s essays which were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results show that children explain their own in-game failures, incompetence of teammates, and technical problems as the main reasons for their gamer rage, and they express their rage verbally, physically, and by quitting. This article is the first attempt to study gamer rage from children’s perspective and it provides new insights on the topic in general.
This study used a survival horror videogame to examine the impact of scary sound effects on cardiovascular and affective arousal and determine whether differences in cardiovascular arousal increased bias in shooting people of color (POCs) first in a shooter task. We expected that participants who played the horror videogame with scary sound effects would have higher cardiovascular arousal and fear than those who played without sound effects. We also expected that increased cardiovascular arousal would increase the likelihood of shooting a POC first (first shot bias) later in a shooter game. The hypothesis that playing the survival horror videogame with scary sound effects would result in higher cardiovascular arousal was supported. First shot bias was not correlated with cardiovascular arousal. However, first shot bias was significantly and positively correlated with enjoyment of the shooter game. A post hoc, exploratory analysis indicated that participants in the scary sound effects condition were significantly more likely to shoot a POC first in the shooter task than those in the no sound effects condition when enjoyment of the shooter game was used as a covariate but not when the covariate was not included. However, this effect was small.
Gaming elicits strong emotional responses. However, little is known about which situations within the gameplay elicit specific emotions. Thus, we aimed to identify which gaming situations elicit positive and negative emotions. We asked Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gamers (N = 652) to recall and write about a situation when they felt amused, angry, enthusiastic, or sad. In our analysis, we used semantic coding and affective words analysis using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). We found that gamers described emotional situations (e.g., clutch, victory, or hacking) that we clustered into 12 broader categories (e.g., positive performance outcomes, underperforming, and technical issues). Gamers reported similar (rather than specific) situations for anger and sadness and similar for amusement and enthusiasm. We documented a wider than usually considered range of positive and negative emotions related to gaming along with specific gaming themes that produce these emotions. These findings contribute to a broader and more specific (events-based) understanding of the emotional aspects of video gaming.
Palabras clave: Consumo de videojuegos, experiencia del usuario, mercado del entretenimiento, videojuegos de horror y mercado. Para algunos, los videojuegos de horror provocan sensaciones como miedo, terror , disgusto, incomodidad e incluso preocupación, a pesar de ello, este género sigue ganando adeptos en el mercado creciente del entretenimiento electróni-co, explotado por la industria del ocio en diversas modalidades y productos con la finalidad de sumergir al espectador en el contexto del juego y ganar mercado. En este artículo se distingue que miedo y horror son dos conceptos diferentes: mientras que el horror es un género presente en varias de las formas de en-tretenimiento como los videojuegos, la cinematografía o la literatura, el miedo (junto con la tensión) para Perron (2014) es una emoción presente tanto en juegos como en películas de horror. Consecuentemente, el miedo es usualmente considerado como el causante de emociones negativas. Sin embargo, existen usuarios que les gusta asustar-se, por lo que el contenido de terror encuentra su mercado. Para comprender MARTÍN CALVO ONTIVEROS LAURA GUADALUPE MARTÍNEZ PEÑA ISABEL CRISTINA FLORES RUEDA COORDINACIÓN ACADÉMICA REGIÓN ALTIPLANO, UASLP ¿Tus gritos venden? El mercado de los videojuegos de terror
Using the extended parallel process model (EPPM), we argue parents and caregivers will be concerned about media violence when they perceive the outcomes as being severe, and they perceive their families as being susceptible. To test these hypotheses, a survey was distributed in the United States among primary caregivers of children ages 4 through 11 (K – 5th grade). In it, we provided parents with layperson descriptions of five common media effect outcomes: fear, cultivation, desensitization, aggression, and hostility. For each violent media effect, caregivers provided their beliefs about the perceived severity and susceptibility for their oldest child in the K-5th grade range while focusing on one of three media: television, movies, or video games. Results suggest parents view their children as most susceptible to fear and cultivation outcomes, but not aggression and hostility. On the other hand, they perceived aggression and hostility to be the most severe. Consistent with the EPPM, ratings of susceptibility and severity predicted overall anxiety about media violence effects. Implications for media violence intervention strategies are discussed.
We exposed male and female undergraduates to a horror movie in the presence of a same-age, opposite-gender companion of low or high initial appeal who expressed mastery, affective indifference, or distress. Measures were obtained for the subjects' affective reactions to the movie, the companion's physical appeal, the companion's personality traits, the companion's desirability as a working partner, and the subjects' tendency to acquiesce to apparently erroneous contentions on the part of the companion. We found that men enjoyed the movie most in the company of a distressed woman and least in the company of a mastering woman. Women, in contrast, enjoyed the movie most in the company of a mastering man and least in the company of a distressed man. The intensity of distress in response to the movie followed the same pattern. Mastery did not enhance the female companions' physical appeal. However, it significantly enhanced that of the low-appeal male companion. This companion also benefited from the display of mastery in that pronounced positive traits were ascribed to him. On the female side, in contrast, it was the highly attractive companion who showed a comparable gain in positive traits. The display of distress in response to horror reduced the desirability of both male and female companions as working mates. In working together, female subjects showed a clear tendency to acquiesce to assertions by their male companions who had shown mastery of horror. The findings were considered consistent with predictions from a gender-role socialization model of affect.
An evolved module for fear elicitation and fear learning with 4 characteristics is proposed. (a) The fear module is preferentially activated in aversive contexts by stimuli that are fear relevant in an evolutionary perspective. (b) Its activation to such stimuli is automatic. (c) It is relatively impenetrable to cognitive control. (d) It originates in a dedicated neural circuitry, centered on the amygdala. Evidence supporting these propositions is reviewed from conditioning studies, both in humans and in monkeys; illusory correlation studies; studies using unreportable stimuli; and studies from animal neuroscience. The fear module is assumed to mediate an emotional level of fear learning that is relatively independent and dissociable from cognitive learning of stimulus relationships.
This paper succeeds an investigation of men and women news consumer responses to a sexualized and unsexualized version of the same female news anchor. Data were collected from about four hundred subjects (n=390) in a between subjects experimental study. As reported elsewhere, male and female participants varied in how they processed information presented by the two different embodiments of the female anchor. Men remembered news presented by the unsexualized anchor version better while women participants had higher memory scores for news presented by the sexualized anchor. Evolutionary psychology offers explanations for why men may have been twitterpated by a sexualized female news anchor but also prompted further investigation to explain the spike in women’s memory scores. To this end, a follow-up examination of open-ended responses tested for derogation, a strong indicator of intrasexual competition among women, and a possible explanation for women’s heightened cognitive investment in what the sexualized anchor reported. Results show that women were more likely to derogate the sexualized than unsexualized anchor version--and did so more than men. A close look at the gist of these swipes revealed further gender nuance in derogatory tactics.
This 3-year study used a mixed-method design beginning with content analysis of games envisioned by 5th and 8th graders, followed by a survey of students in the same age range reacting to video promos representing these games. Results show that the designer's gender influences the design outcome of games and that girls expected that they would find the girl-designed games significantly more fun to play than the boy-designed games, whereas boys imagined that the boy-designed games would be significantly more fun to play than the girl-designed games. Boys overwhelmingly picked games based entirely on fighting as their top ranked games. Girls overwhelmingly ranked those same fighting games as their least preferred. Girls as designers consciously envisioned games with both male and female players in mind, whereas boys designed only for other boys. Both 8th-grade boy game ideas were liberally ``borrowed'' from a successful commercial game.
This study was conducted to examine enduring fright reactions to mass media via recollective self-reports of a sample of undergraduates (average age 20.6 years) from two universities. Ninety percent (138 of 153) of the participants reported such a reaction. Most experiences occurred in childhood or adolescence, with 26.1% of the participants still experiencing residual anxiety at the time of measurement. More than half of the sample reported subsequent disturbances in sleeping or eating patterns, and a substantial proportion reported avoiding or dreading the situation depicted in the program or movie and mental preoccupation with the stimulus. Stimulus types were coded according to the jive categories of stimuli related to phobic reactions—animal, environmental, situational, blood/injection/injury, and "other" (disturbing sounds and distorted images)—described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Almost all of the films or movies reported contained stimuli from at least one of these categories. Developmental differences were observed in both the types of stimuli that provoked fright responses and the coping strategies used by viewers.
In this meta-analysis, we synthesized data from published journal articles that investigated viewers' enjoyment of fright and violence. Given the limited research on this topic, this analysis was primarily a way of summarizing the current state of knowledge and developing directions for future research. The studies selected (a) examined frightening or violent media content; (b) used self-report measures of enjoyment or preference for such content (the dependent variable); and (c) included independent variables that were given theoretical consideration in the literature. The independent variables examined were negative affect and arousal during viewing, empathy, sensation seeking, aggressiveness, and the respondents' gender and age. The analysis confirmed that male viewers, individuals lower in empathy, and those higher in sensation seeking and aggressiveness reported more enjoyment of fright and violence. Some support emerged for Zillmann's (1980, 1996) model of suspense enjoyment. Overall, the results demonstrate the importance of considering how viewers interpret or appraise their reactions to fright and violence. However, the studies were so diverse in design and measurement methods that it was difficult to identify the underlying processes. Suggestions are proposed for future research that will move toward the integration of separate lines of inquiry in a unified approach to understanding entertainment.
Applying theories of cognition and affect that predict emotional responses to a stimulus on the basis of prior affect toward specific cues included in that stimulus, a study was conducted assessing individuals' fear and enjoyment reactions to horror films. Prior fear of specific cues included in each film was a significant predictor of overall fear reactions, after controlling for prior exposure to the film, fear of specific cues not included in the film, and manifest anxiety. Prior liking of specific cues included in each film did not emerge as a significant predictor of overall enjoyment. The contributions of gender and of level of forewarning about the film's content were also assessed.
That all events are equally associable and obey common laws is a central assumption of general process learning theory. A continuum of preparedness is defined which holds that organisms are prepared to associate certain events, unprepared for some, and contraprepared for others. A review of data from the traditional learning paradigms shows that the assumption of equivalent associability is false. Examples from experiments in classical conditioning, instrumental training, discrimination training, and avoidance training support the assumption. Language acquisition and the functional autonomy of motives are also viewed using the preparedness continuum. It is speculated that the laws of learning themselves may vary with the preparedness of the organism for the association and that different physiological and cognitive mechanisms may covary with the dimension. (2 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The possible impact of technological advancement on video games’ effects—particularly in the case of violent games—has often been discussed but has not been thoroughly explored by empirical research. The present investigation employed a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial experiment to examine the interplay of technological advancement and violence by exposing participants (N= 120) to either a newer or older version of a violent or nonviolent game and measuring these factors’ effects on players’ sense of presence, involvement, physiological arousal (measured by skin conductance), self-reported arousal, and affective and cognitive aggression. The results indicate that technological advancement increased participants’ sense of presence, involvement, and physiological and self-reported arousal. Neither advancement nor violence had statistically significant effects on accessibility of players’ aggressive thoughts, but there is some tentative evidence that violent game content increased players’ state hostility. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed, and recommendations are made for future research.
This paper studies the way survival horror games are designed to frighten and scare the gamer. Comparing video games and movies, the experiential state of the gamer and that of the spectator, as well as the shock of surprise and tension suspense, it focuses on the effects of forewarning on the emotional responses to survival horror games.
This experiment employed a 2 (third vs. first person) × 2 (blood on/off) × 2 (sex) design in order to examine the effects of two internal video game manipulations: the presence of blood and point of view on participants’ perceptions of the game. Overall, when the blood manipulation was on, participants perceived greater gore. Players were significantly more focused when they played in the third-person point of view than when they played in first person. Males were more involved in the game overall regardless of point of view, but females were more focused and involved when they played in third, not first, person. In addition, we wanted to see if game manipulations and perceptions of the game affected aggressive outcomes. Those who played the game in the blood-on condition had more physically aggressive intentions, and when players were more involved and immersed in the game, they reported greater hostility and physically aggressive intentions. Findings are discussed as they relate to mental models of media violence.
The 150 top-selling video games sold in the U.S. across nine platforms were content analyzed to study representations of female
bodies. All human females in the games were captured via screenshot and body parts measured. These measurements were then
compared to actual anthropometric data drawn from a representative sample of 3,000 American women. The results show that female
video game characters at low levels of photorealism are systematically larger than the average American woman whereas female
characters at the highest level of photorealism are systematically thinner. This study also found that games rated for children
featured females that are thinner than characters in games rated for adults. These findings are discussed in terms of cultivation
theory.
Can human beings relate to computer or television programs in the same way they relate to other human beings? Based on numerous psychological studies, this book concludes that people not only can but do treat computers, televisions, and new media as real people and places. Studies demonstrate that people are "polite" to computers; that they treat computers with female voices differently than "male" ones; that large faces on a screen can invade our personal space; and that on-screen and real-life motion can provoke the same physical responses. Using everyday language to engage readers interested in psychology, communication, and computer technology, Reeves and Nass detail how this knowledge can help in designing a wide range of media.
The idea that empathy may best be considered a multidimensional construct, consisting of both cognitive and emotional facets, has recently been gaining in popularity. To date, however, little research explicitly based on such a view has been carried out. We conducted the present experiment to explore the different influences of cognitive and emotional empathy on two types of responses to dramatic stimuli: positive and negative emotional reactions. Consistent with a multidimensional view of empathy, the two types of empathy exhibited different effects; positive emotional reactions were affected primarily by cognitive empathy, and negative emotional reactions were most heavily influenced by emotional empathy. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to a multidimensional approach to the study of empathic responding.
Two studies examined violent video game effects on aggression-related variables. Study 1 found that real-life violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The relation was stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive and for men. Academic achievement was negatively related to overall amount of time spent playing video games. In Study 2, laboratory exposure to a graphically violent video game increased aggressive thoughts and behavior. In both studies, men had a more hostile view of the world than did women. The results from both studies are consistent with the General Affective Aggression Model, which predicts that exposure to violent video games will increase aggressive behavior in both the short term (e.g., laboratory aggression) and the long term (e.g., delinquency).
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44.1 (2001) 17-31
--A. K. Reinhart (1990)
Anthropologists have long puzzled over why certain objects and activities are avoided, reviled, or proscribed in many cultures. Numerous theories have been proposed, but as Reinhart (1990) suggests above, a full explanation remains elusive. Psychologists recently have begun to explore the nature of the revulsion that is occasioned by the sight of excreta, rotten food, slime, and bugs. They have described and categorized the emotion of disgust and have even proposed a location in the brain where disgust may be seated. However, the total body of research into disgust is so scant that it has been described as the "forgotten emotion of psychiatry" (Phillips et al. 1998).
Our interest in disgust has its roots in a decade of work exploring hygiene behavior in Africa, India and Europe. The failures of the health education approach in promoting hygiene has drawn attention to the need to understand existing motivations and practices more fully. Although there is much variation in the behaviors that are considered acceptable and appropriate in different societies, we found signs of a consistent pattern. We found that hygiene was important to all of the people that we worked with, and that hygienic behavior often was motivated by the desire to avoid or remove things that were found disgusting. Review of the anthropological, psychological, historical, and medical literature suggests a wide variety of explanations for hygienic behavior. However, few writers offer explanations for the origins of hygiene or consider how it might be related to the disgust emotion. This paper explores the nature of disgust and argues that it can best be understood as a mechanism for defense against infectious disease.
Disgust is a powerful emotion and is thought to be a human universal. Darwin (1872) counted it as one of the six basic emotions. The manifestations of disgust include a particular facial expression (wrinkling of the nose, pulling down the corners of the mouth), characteristic neurological signs (lowered blood pressure, lowered galvanic skin response, and nausea) and characteristic actions (stopping, dropping the object of disgust, shuddering or saying "yuk!") (Rozin et al. 1993). The facial expression of disgust has been found to be recognizable across cultures (Ekman and Friesen 1986; Mesquita and Frijda 1992). Disgust apparently is distinguishable from fear in that disgust involves a suspension of activity, while fear heightens activity in preparation for fight or flight (Phillips et al. 1998). Recent magnetic resonance imaging studies have proposed a specific neurological substrate for disgust, located in the anterior insular cortex (Phillips et al. 1997).
Though the details of what constitutes a disgusting stimulus may vary to some degree from culture to culture (Davey et al. 1998) and from individual to individual, there appear to be some prototypical objects of disgust. Phillips and colleagues (1998) suggest that these are waste products of the human body, while Rozin and Fallon (1987) see the key source of disgust as "the prospect of [oral] incorporation of an offensive object." Rozin and Fallon continue: "The offensive objects are contaminants; that is, if they even briefly contact an acceptable food they tend to render that food unacceptable." According to Rozin, substances of animal origin, poor hygiene, violations of the body envelope, and death are disgust stimuli. Disgust is also elicited by physical contact with unpleasant or unknown people (Rozin and Fallon 1987). Furthermore, disgust appears to have a cultural domain and can be elicited by immorality and violations of social rules (Miller 1997; Rozin et al. 1999b).
Our program of qualitative field work exploring the motivation for hygiene behavior generated sets of objects and events that were found to be disgusting from five studies in Africa, India, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and in an international airport. These are reproduced in Tables 1 through 5, and the data sources are described in the notes. Asking people what disgusts them produced a very diverse set of objects, events, actions...
Emotional reactions are organized by underlying motivational states--defensive and appetitive--that have evolved to promote the survival of individuals and species. Affective responses were measured while participants viewed pictures with varied emotional and neutral content. Consistent with the motivational hypothesis, reports of the strongest emotional arousal, largest skin conductance responses, most pronounced cardiac deceleration, and greatest modulation of the startle reflex occurred when participants viewed pictures depicting threat, violent death, and erotica. Moreover, reflex modulation and conductance change varied with arousal, whereas facial patterns were content specific. The findings suggest that affective responses serve different functions-mobilization for action, attention, and social communication-and reflect the motivational system that is engaged, its intensity of activation, and the specific emotional context.
To test whether the results of the accumulated studies on media violence and aggressive behavior are consistent with the theories that have evolved to explain the effects. We tested for the existence of both short-term and long-term effects for aggressive behavior. We also tested the theory-driven hypothesis that short-term effects should be greater for adults and long-term effects should be greater for children.
Meta-analysis.
Children younger than 18 years and adults.
Violent media, including TV, movies, video games, music, and comic books.
Measures of aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal (eg, heart rate, blood pressure), and helping behavior.
Effect size estimates were combined using meta-analytic procedures. As expected, the short-term effects of violent media were greater for adults than for children whereas the long-term effects were greater for children than for adults. The results also showed that there were overall modest but significant effect sizes for exposure to media violence on aggressive behaviors, aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, arousal levels, and helping behavior.
The results are consistent with the theory that short-term effects are mostly due to the priming of existing well-encoded scripts, schemas, or beliefs, which adults have had more time to encode. In contrast, long-term effects require the learning (encoding) of scripts, schemas, or beliefs. Children can encode new scripts, schemas, and beliefs via observational learning with less interference and effort than adults.
Despite the importance of life-cycle models to sensation seeking research, past studies have typically focused on adolescents and adults. This is especially problematic for researchers studying the role of media use in the development of risky behaviors (e.g., violent video game consumption and aggressive behavior). To facilitate research with child populations, a brief sensation seeking scale for children (BSSS-C) is developed and validated with a sample of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders (N = 136). The BSSS-C is found to be internally reliable (α = .82) as well as a strong predictor of several risky child behaviors. Higher sensation seeking children were more likely to play video games, including violent subgenres (e.g., shooters), and to enjoy playing video games that contained specific acts of violence (e.g., weapon use). Higher sensation seekers were also more likely to engage in rule-breaking behavior, such as bringing prohibited cell phones to school. The results suggest that sensation seeking may be related to risky behavior at a very young age.
A study of viewer responses to film clips containing scenes of graphic horror was designed to evaluate the effect of empathy upon emotional reactions. Prior to viewing, subjects completed questionnaires measuring dimensions of empathy, including wandering imagination, fictional involvement, humanistic orientation, and emotional contagion. Several weeks later, subjects were exposed to movie clips containing graphic scenes of horror. During exposure, measures of skin temperature were obtained as an indicator of physiological response. Immediately following exposure, subjects filled out a questionnaire measuring emotional and behavioral responses. The data were subjected to path analysis in order to test a model relating dimensions of empathy to emotional and behavioral responses. The results indicate that empathy is a critical variable for consideration in research on emotional reactions to graphic horror.
The present study used autobiographical memory to investigate the social experience and short- and long-term effects of seeing frightening movies on a date, extending Zillmann and Weaver's (1996) model of differential gender-role behaviors to persons' own real-life dating experiences. Young adult participants (a) recalled the experience of watching a scary movie on a date, and (b) were assessed for levels of gender-role traditionality, sensation seeking, and dispositional empathy. Results showed that almost all individuals could recall such a date. Although men reported more positive reactions to the film and women more negative reactions, the experience appeared to have some social utility for both. Sex was a better predictor than the gender-role measures for Negative Reactions, Sleep Disturbances, and the likelihood of being Scared Today by the movie. Sensation-Seeking and Empathy were modest predictors of the same variables. In sum, the dating context seemed to encourage both men and women to behave and react in highly gender-stereotypical ways.
This study examined the relation between personality factors, as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised and individuals' viewing and enjoyment of various television and film genres. Five hundred fifty adults between the ages of 18 and 78 were surveyed. Utilizing a uses and gratifications model, the factors underlying media use (gratifications sought-GS) and media liking (gratifications obtained-GO), particularly of violent fare, were investigated. Overall, it was found that viewing (GS) and liking (GO) were not strongly related. In terms of personality factors, there was some supporting evidence that personality factors are associated with liking and, to a lesser extent, watching certain content. Several of the Neuroticism facets were positively related to watching violent media, watching real crime, and watching cop dramas; however, there were no significant relations between Neuroticism and liking violent content. For Extraversion, there was a negative relation with overall television viewing, but a positive one with movie watching. When extraverts did watch television, the results indicated a significant association between Extraversion and various violent genres. For Openness there was a positive relation between liking of violent media and openness to aesthetics. Last, we found that several facets of Agreeableness were negatively associated with liking violent content.
Grade-school children (N = 219, M age = 8.5 years) reported their experiences of media-induced fear in their own words and using forced-choice items. Seventy-six per cent reported a specific instance of media-induced fright; most were responding to movies (seen in theaters or homes) and media content they had not chosen to view. The most commonly mentioned content involved supernatural themes. More than one-third of children scared by movies named a movie rated G or PG. Frequent symptoms included sleep disturbances and anxieties in normally nonthreatening situations. Having a television in one's bedroom was the best predictor of fright severity. Findings demonstrate the value of using open-ended questions and underscore the need for further research on prevention and coping strategies.
explores the merits of various conceptual approaches to the phenomenon of empathy / the principal theories of empathy are outlined, and their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations are discussed / a new theoretical model of empathy is then presented / this model incorporates and integrates much established theory / the presentation is followed by a discussion of pertinent research findings / finally, the new model's implications for affective development are projected
special consideration is given to the changing ecology of empathetic experience / focus is on the new communication technology with its enormous capacity for replacing immediate, affect-producing social exchanges with sign events that abstract, simulate, and represent such exchanges (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We exposed male and female undergraduates to a horror movie in the presence of a same-age, opposite-gender companion of low or high initial appeal who expressed mastery, affective indifference, or distress. Measures were obtained for the subjects' affective reactions to the movie, the companion's physical appeal, the companion's personality traits, the companion's desirability as a working partner, and the subjects' tendency to acquiesce to apparently erroneous contentions on the part of the companion. We found that men enjoyed the movie most in the company of a distressed woman and least in the company of a mastering woman. Women, in contrast, enjoyed the movie most in the company of a mastering man and least in the company of a distressed man. The intensity of distress in response to the movie followed the same pattern. Mastery did not enhance the female companions' physical appeal. However, it significantly enhanced that of the low-appeal male companion. This companion also benefited from the display of mastery in that pronounced positive traits were ascribed to him. On the female side, in contrast, it was the highly attractive companion who showed a comparable gain in positive traits. The display of distress in response to horror reduced the desirability of both male and female companions as working mates. In working together, female subjects showed a clear tendency to acquiesce to assertions by their male companions who had shown mastery of horror. The findings were considered consistent with predictions from a gender-role socialization model of affect.
This study identifies four motivations adolescents report for viewing graphic horror films: gore watching, thrill watching, independent watching, and problem watching. On the basis of a uses and gratifications model of media effects, it is argued that viewing motivations are predictors of responses to graphic horror. This study also seeks to extend Zillmann's excitation-transfer model of media effects to predict under what conditions viewing-generated arousal is transferred to positive or negative affect. The dispositional characteristics of fearfulness, empathy, and sensation seeking are found to be related to different viewing motivations, providing a viewing-related personality profile for the four different types of adolescent viewers. The four viewing motivations are found to be related to viewers’cognitive and affective responses to horror films, as well as viewers’tendency to identify with either the killers or victims in these films. Directions for future research addressing the role of viewing motivations in the relationship between violent media, cognitive and affective responses, and subsequent behavioral aggression are discussed.
The uses-and-gratifications tradition posits that individual needs for stimulation and for information vary systematically. These needs may affect what media sources and other stimuli are accessed by individuals. In this study we sampled adolescents and college students to examine (a) the relation between sensation seeking and exposure to violent and nonviolent television, and (b) the subsequent role that violent television may play among high sensation-seeking adolescents in their exposure to risky behaviors. Two sensation-seeking dimensions, disinhibition (positively) and experience seeking (negatively), related to adolescents' exposure to violent television. In addition, among sensation seekers, those who exhibit risk-taking behavior were not similar to those who watched violent television, making it unlikely that the two sets of behaviors can compensate for one another. We discuss implications and directions for future research.
The study was designed to examine the relationships of sensation seeking, extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism traits with an interest in presentations of violent or morbid and sexual events in the media and in live sports. Scales of curiosity about morbid and sexual events and self-ratings of attendance of horror and X-rated erotic movies were developed and given to 89 male and 213 female undergraduates along with the personality scales. Males scored higher than females on both types of curiosity and film attendance scales as well as on the SSS and P scale. The SSS and P scale correlated positively with curiosity scales and sensation seeking also correlated with film attendance of both types of films. A new hypothesis suggests that high sensation seekers are interested in stimuli that increase activity in central catecholamine systems. Past research has demonstrated that violent, fear-provoking and erotic films increase peripheral catecholamines.
The relationship between entertainment activity preference and sensation-seeking was investigated by survey and actual movie selection and viewing. Cardiac rate and rate change was monitored during movie selection and viewing. High sensation-seeking (HSS) females reported preferences for activities centered about alcohol, sexually-explicit materials and ‘rock’ music. HSS males reported preferences for sexually-explicit materials and news/documentary reports. Low sensation-seeking (LSS) males and females reported preferences for the musical stage, theatrical drama and comedy, and romantic/dramatic novels. HSS males and HSS females allotted high proportions of viewing time to an ‘action’ movie, and changed channels more frequently than LSS. The indices of cardiac response utilized in this study were unrelated to movie viewing activities, a result which does not support the ‘optimal level of arousal’ view of sensation-seeking proposed by Zuckerman (1979).
We developed a self-report measure of sensation seeking, a dispositional risk factor for various problem behaviors. In two studies, we administered the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS) to more than 7000 adolescents. Study 1 participants completed a paper-and-pencil form of the BSSS in mass-testing sessions. Psychometric analyses of the resultant data revealed suitable item characteristics and internal consistency of responses to the items across age (13–17 years), sex, and ethnic categories. Study 2 participants, who completed the BSSS individually in an interview format, also provided data on their perceptions of and experiences with licit and illicit drugs as well as a series of additional risk and protective factors. Scores on the full BSSS correlated inversely with negative attitudes toward drug use and positively with drug use; sensation seeking as measured by the BSSS was a particularly strong predictor of the intention to try marijuana in the future. BSSS scores were reliably and predictably associated with other risk and protective factors.
A number of emerging technologies including virtual reality, simulation rides, video conferencing, home theater, and high definition television are designed to provide media users with an illusion that a mediated experience is not mediated, a perception defined here as presence. Traditional media such as the telephone, radio, television, film, and many others offer a lesser degree of presence as well. This article examines the key concept of presence. It begins by noting practical and theoretical reasons for studying this concept. Six conceptualizations of presence found in a diverse set of literatures are identified and a detailed explication of the concept that incorporates these conceptualizations is presented. Existing research and speculation about the factors that encourage or discourage a sense of presence in media users as well as the physiological and psychological effects of presence are then outlined. Finally, suggestions concerning future systematic research about presence are presented.
How often do we hear that Americans are so ignorant about politics that their civic competence is impaired, and that the media are to blame because they do a dismal job of informing the public? Processing Politics shows that average Americans are far smarter than the critics believe. Integrating a broad range of current research on how people learn (from political science, social psychology, communication, physiology, and artificial intelligence), Doris Graber shows that televised presentationsâat their bestâactually excel at transmitting information and facilitating learning. She critiques current political offerings in terms of their compatibility with our learning capacities and interests, and she considers the obstacles, both economic and political, that affect the content we receive on the air, on cable, or on the Internet. More and more people rely on information from television and the Internet to make important decisions. Processing Politics offers a sound, well-researched defense of these remarkably versatile media, and challenges us to make them work for us in our democracy.
Previous research has shown that playing violent video game exposure can increase aggressive thoughts, aggressive feelings, and physiological arousal. This study compared the effects that playing a realistic violent, unrealistic violent, or nonviolent video game for 45 min has on such variables. For the purpose of this study, realism was defined as the probability of seeing an event in real life. Participants (N=74; 39 male, 35 female) played either a realistic violent, unrealistic violent, or nonviolent video game for 45 min. Aggressive thoughts and aggressive feelings were measured four times (every 15 min), whereas arousal was measured continuously. The results showed that, though playing any violent game stimulated aggressive thoughts, playing a more realistic violent game stimulated significantly more aggressive feelings and arousal over the course of play.
This study compared fear learning acquired through direct experience (Pavlovian conditioning) and fear learning acquired without direct experience via either observation or verbal instruction. We examined whether these three types of learning yielded differential responses to conditioned stimuli (CS+) that were presented unmasked (available to explicit awareness) or masked (not available to explicit awareness). In the Pavlovian group, the CS+ was paired with a mild shock, whereas the observational-learning group learned through observing the emotional expression of a confederate receiving shocks paired with the CS+. The instructed-learning group was told that the CS+ predicted a shock. The three groups demonstrated similar levels of learning as measured by the skin conductance response to unmasked stimuli. As in previous studies, participants also displayed a significant learning response to masked stimuli following Pavlovian conditioning. However, whereas the observational-learning group also showed this effect, the instructed-learning group did not.
Behavioral data suggest that fear stimuli automatically activate fear and capture attention. This effect is likely to be mediated by a subcortical brain network centered on the amygdala. Consistent with this view, brain imaging studies show that masked facial stimuli activate the amygdala as do masked pictures of threatening animals such as snakes and spiders. When the stimulus conditions allow conscious processing, the amygdala response to feared stimuli is enhanced and a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated. However, the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited. Instead there is activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response. The data suggest that activation of the amygdala is mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus before accessing the amygdala, and which operates on low spatial frequency information.
The media and children's fears, anxieties and perception of danger
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Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry
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Limbo review: Hell is for children
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Horror video games: Essays on the fusion of fear and play
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Stable and situational determinants of comforting: A model of empathy, film genre, and mood state. Paper presented at the meeting of the Speech Communication Association
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A model of empathy, film genre, and mood state. Paper presented at the meeting of the
Speech Communication Association, New Orleans, LA.
A model of empathy and emotional reactions to horror
- R Tamborini
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III & R. Tamborini (Eds.), Horror films: Current research on audience preferences and
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Reacting to graphic horror: a model of empathy and emotional behavior
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Gender-socialization theory of reactions to horror
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and reactions (pp. 81-101). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Personality and curiosity about morbid and sexual events
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